Day 21: Hope is not wishful thinking, but confidence

Friday

Mar 8, 2013 at 12:13 PM

This wisdom today is from Paul L. Hammer who has been a biblical teacher for more than 50 years (he’s 86). Enjoy and be encouraged… Whenever I hear the word hope, I think of the Apostle’s Paul’s words: “And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the [...]

simplyfaithful

This wisdom today is from Paul L. Hammer who has been a biblical teacher for more than 50 years (he’s 86). Enjoy and be encouraged…

Whenever I hear the word hope, I think of the Apostle’s Paul’s words: “And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). Hope is not wishful thinking, but a confidence in the future based on our experience of God’s love in the past.

Paul speaks of faith and hope and love in Romans 5:1-5, as well as in 1 Corinthians 13, and the reason why love is the greatest of the three for him is because faith is faith in God’s love, and hope is hope in God’s love; and this love is the love from which nothing in all creation can separate us (Romans 8:38-39).